


in a truck a long ways from home;

by prouveyrac



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, dani and aubrey go on a drive that becomes very emotional, dani is homesick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 04:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18242072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prouveyrac/pseuds/prouveyrac
Summary: “Mama told me that I can always use her truck if there’s… something going on.”“Something going on like a midnight coffee run? Or something going on like Kepler is burning to the ground and we need to evacuate?”“She never specified.”orAubrey and an oddly energetic Dani go on a late-night drive in Mama's truck. Dani reaches a breaking point.(based off the tumblr prompt: danbrey, “I’m here for you”)





	in a truck a long ways from home;

Through bleary eyes, Aubrey could see that her bedside clock said it was one-forty-one-A.M. when she heard quiet knocking on the door to her bedroom in Amnesty Lodge. Instinctively, her heart leapt into her throat, for people who were staying in lodges didn’t typically get visitors that weren’t axe murderers and serial killers (or a serial killer who used an axe to murder their victims). 

Then, remembering that she has lived in Amnesty Lodge for half a year now and visitors (that weren’t axe murderers but, instead, Big Foot or a vampire or Jake Coolice) were actually quite common, her heart only swelled in her throat and choked her because  _holy shit it’s Mama and there’s another abomination and someone’s dead and holy fuck it’s so early and-_

And then, with a sudden serenity and a drop into its rightful place in her chest, Aubrey’s heart stopped its marathon. Aubrey has actually been woken up by Mama before with some possibly-abomination related disaster, and her knocking was loud and forceful and typically followed with an, “Hey, Aubrey? Sorry ‘bout this, but we got trouble.”

The person on the other side of Aubrey’s door said nothing, though, and instead, as Aubrey pushed herself up on her elbow, knocked again.

“‘M comin’,” Aubrey, barely audible, mumbled out. Rubbing her eyes, she clumsily stumbled out of her bed and, after a moment, grabbed the throw blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. Despite the fact that the radiator against the wall was cranking out heat, it was still mid-winter in Kepler and Aubrey would like to do as much as she could to fight the cold now creeping up from her bare feet and across her spine.

Swinging open her door, Aubrey blinked at the visitor on the other side. Haloed in the soft orange glow from the hall lights, left on for those who liked to wander, stood Dani.

Dani who was fully dressed with her too-big green jacket shrugged on over a sweatshirt, with her yellow beanie pulled over her slightly-tangled hair, with her light brown eyes (orange when she didn’t have her disguise on) glinting ever-so-slightly behind her round glasses.

It was the first thing Aubrey was seeing for the day and, damn, was it going to be hard to beat.

“Dans, hey,” Aubrey said, trying to seem as awake as possible as she leaned on the door frame. She stuck her head out, looking up and down the hall before back at her visitor. “Everything… good?”

“Do you want to go somewhere?” Dani asked.

Aubrey, who was about to tease Dani for answering her question with another one, snapped her mouth shut when Dani lifted up her hand and swung a key ring around her pointer finger. Aubrey looked from the key ring to Dani (who smiled nervously), then back to the key ring (still swinging around her finger), and then back to Dani again (who raised an eyebrow).

“Are those Mama’s keys?”

“To her truck?”

“Does she… have another car?”

“Oh, no. Well,  _yes,_  these are her keys.  _No,_ she does not have another car.”

Aubrey stared at the keys again, finally stopping their twirl around Dani’s finger. The ignition key faintly glinted off the orange lighting and the key to the front door of Amnesty Lodge clinked against it. The only two other keychains on the ring were a Cryptonomica one (that Ned gave her for Christmas before also giving her a stolen bottle of Whiskey) and one from the Monongahela National Forest (that she had from even before Aubrey got to Amnesty, though Aubrey hadn’t asked Duck yet if he had met Mama before).

She looked back to Dani. “Is this… okay?”

“Oh, I’m a fine driver. Mama taught me.”

“No, I-” Aubrey laughed slightly, shaking her head. “I’m not doubting your driving skills. I just mean- is this allowed? I don’t wanna get in, like, trouble, you know?”

“Oh- oh,” Dani said, laughing, too, except Aubrey noted that it seemed more… manic? “Oh, yeah, this is fine!” She spun the key ring again as if to accentuate her point. “Mama told me that I can always use her truck if there’s… something going on.”

Aubrey arched an eyebrow. “Something going on like a midnight coffee run? Or something going on like Kepler is burning to the ground and we need to evacuate?”

Dani smiled, and it was hopeful and sly and nervous. She leaned back and forth on her feet, clasping her hands behind her back.

Aubrey had never seen Dani so… wound up.

“She never specified,” Dani said.

Aubrey teetered for a moment. She had already pissed off Mama once recently, and even though she felt like going on a night drive was nothing in comparison to giving an abomination’s minion the power of speech and then bringing him to the Lodge, she _really_  didn’t want to piss off Mama again.

But something about Dani’s nervous smile, her laughter, the keys spinning around her finger, the fact that she was dressed as if she was ready to bolt out the door was enough to convince her.

Aubrey smiled. “Yeah, okay, yeah,” she said, nodding. Dani’s face lit up and it tugged at Aubrey’s heart. “Let me just… put something warmer on, okay?”

“Okay, yeah, awesome!” Dani beamed, bouncing slightly. “I’ll be in the lobby! Just meet me there!”

“Okay,” Aubrey said, her voice trailing off as Dani turned and practically skipped down the hall.

Aubrey watched until she disappeared into the dark lobby before turning back into her room. She shut the door behind her and cast a look to Dr. Harris Bonkers PhD who, awoken from his slumber on the cushioned chair in the corner, stared back at her.

“Something’s up, Doc,” she said, shaking her head. Padding around the room, she grabbed the first sweatshirt and pair of jeans she found. “Like, you know Dans. She’s- she’s all chill and sweet and, well, you  _know_  Dani. But… but that was something, right?”

As she tugged on the clothes and then fished around under her bed for her boots, she looked back at Dr. Bonkers, who twitched his ears.

“Yeah, I know, I’m overreacting, right?” Aubrey huffed, shoving her boots on. “It’s just… something, you know?” Finishing lacing up her boots, she stood and grabbed her beanie (red and a gift from Dani) from where she had left it on the dresser. “I’ll keep you updated.”

And, after that insightful conversation, she turned and walked out of her room.

Dani was where she said she’d be, and Aubrey found her sitting on one of the loveseats facing out to the front of the Lodge. She didn’t look up when Aubrey approached her and, instead, kept her eyes trained on the light snow fall. The pale moonlight shining down onto her, Dani looked almost… otherwordly, as if, just for a moment, she was somewhere else.

And then Aubrey cast a shadow over the light and Dani jumped. She looked up at Aubrey and, after a second of a blank expression, she grinned. “Hey!”

“Hey!” Aubrey said back to her, trying to give her the same energy despite the fact that about seven different alarms were ringing in her head.

Dani shot up and grabbed Aubrey’s hand, pulling her to the front door. “This is gonna be so fun!” she was saying, smiling back at Aubrey. “A girl’s night!”

“Yeah, a fun night drive,” Aubrey said, keeping a close eye on Dani as she opened the front door with a flourish and started down the porch steps. The cold winter air brushed against Aubrey’s face and, instincitvely, she drew herself further into her sweatshirt. 

Mama’s truck, parked out front, was covered in a couple inches of snow. “You get in front, okay?” Dani said. “The cold doesn’t really bother me, you know? I mean, it does, but not- not like you guys, yeah? So, yeah, you get in front, and I’ll take care of the snow.”

“O-Okay, yeah,” Aubrey stuttered, nodding. As Dani unlocked Mama’s truck and dug in the back for the duster, Aubrey sent her one last glance before climbing up into the passenger seat. She shut the door behind her, a little bit of snow falling off from the force, and pressed her head up against the window to watch Dani.

When Dani finally climbed into the driver’s seat, she gave Aubrey an apologetic smile. “I should’ve given you the keys to warm the truck up, huh?”

Aubrey shrugged. “It’s fine,” she said with a smile, though she did tuck her hands between her legs to warm them as Dani started the ignition.

Dani smoothly manuevered the car down the winding road leading up to Amnesty Lodge, nodding her head to a song that only she could hear as she peered out the windshield.

“So,” Aubrey said when she couldn’t see the Lodge in the rearview mirror any more. “Where do you want to go?”

“I…” Dani hesitated and, for the first time that night, her voice lacked that sudden energy it had in the Lodge. “Can we just drive?”

Her words were backed with softness, barely enough behind them to fill the front of the truck.

“Of course,” Aubrey answered, her own voice just as soft. She couldn’t keep the worry off her face as she did another once-over of Dani but, still looking out the windshield, it didn’t look like Dani noticed.

“I’ve- I’ve done this once or twice before,” Dani began to explain. “With Jake.”

“Oh, could he not go out tonight?”

Dani shrugged. “I- I just wanted it to be the two of us,” she said, looking at Aubrey out of the side of her eye. “Is that… okay?”

“Oh- oh yeah, totally!” Aubrey assured, smiling, and Dani smiled back. “Things have been so crazy, I feel like I haven’t seen you.”

Dani huffed out a laugh as she turned down another side street. “Crazy is definitely a good word for everything.”

Aubrey, worrying her bottom lip, nodded. The Calamity Tree had, without a doubt, royally fucked them all over, and she didn’t need to be a part of the Pine Guard to see that (of course it helped though).

She was just glad that Duck and Leo were alright after the whole blowing-the-Pizza-Hut-sign-into-Leo’s-general-store… fuck up.

“It’s funny, you know?” Dani continued. “Well, okay, not funny, it’s  _fucked_  is what it is. It’s super fucked because, like, this shit has always gone on, you know? Like, all this stuff with the gate and Sylvain and everything… its always been here. But now? It just feels like everything is getting worse.”

“Maybe that means we’re getting better?” Aubrey offered with a weak smile.

Dani smiled, a real one this time, and glanced over at Aubrey again. “You are and, don’t get me wrong Aubs, that’s very comforting.”

“There’s a ‘but’ attached to that, isn’t there?”

Dani laughed dryly. “ _But_  all this shit keeps on happening and it’s getting worse and I’m… I’m  _here_  while it’s happening.”

Aubrey stared at her and suddenly, with the weight of something ginormous crashing into her, she was hit with the reminder that Kepler, that  _Earth,_ wasn’t Dani’s home.

“Dani,” she said quietly. Dani’s fists gripped the steering wheel tight enough that her knuckles went white. “Are… are you okay?”

For a little while, Dani stayed silent, and silent for long enough that Aubrey began to accept that she wasn’t going to get an answer. It wasn’t until they reached the main road that Dani finally spoke. 

“Do you ever think about just running away again?”

Aubrey, who had been staring out her side window, whipped her head around to look back at Dani.

“Or maybe not run away,” Dani kept going. “I don’t think that’s the right word. I didn’t run away, and you didn’t run away. We just have places that we can’t go back to. And, you know, sometimes I think about going somewhere else because- don’t get me wrong, I love Amnesty Lodge with my whole heart, and Mama has done…  _everything_  for me but… shit, I haven’t been home in so long, sometimes I might as well keep going, you know?”

“Dani,” Aubrey whispered, furrowing her eyebrows.

“And the best part?” Another laugh burst out of Dani, and it was sudden and sharp and pained. “Who knows what anyone would think of me if I did! Fuck knows I’ll never know what my parents and- and what my brother think of me! I’m- I’m just the daughter that was sent away and I miss them _so much_  but who knows if they miss me back!” She shook her head as they drove past one of the town’s street lamps and, much to Aubrey’s horror, she saw that fat tears were rolling down Dani’s cheeks.

“Dani,” Aubrey repeated but, in that moment, she was lost for words.

“Maybe I’ll just become the girl that vanished from Amnesty.” Dani’s voice was shaking and Aubrey watched as a tear dripped off her chin. “I’ll just keep going because, well, where else do I have to go?”

Aubrey gaped and… and she wanted to tell Dani that she would be okay. She wanted to tell her that she would find her place; that Amnesty, with all that love Dani felt for it and all the love it had for her, would eventually feel like home.

But Aubrey, who had been walking farther and farther from a place that she loved but a place that might kill her if she returned, couldn’t lie to Dani like that.

Instead, she just said, “Maybe we should pull over.”

Dani scrunched up her face, tears still falling from her eyes, and pulled over into a gas station’s empty parking lot. She shoved the gear into park before sniffling and roughly rubbing at her face.

“Dani, I-”

“Aubrey, sometimes I can’t handle it.”

Aubrey swallowed thickly and held out her hand to Dani. With no hesitation, Dani took it. “Can’t handle what?”

Dani shook her head and released a shaking breath. “Being so lonely, even when there’s people in Amnesty who I love, and who love me. That everything is so quiet, even in the middle of the day when the Lodge is so  _alive._  The fact that there are so many people over  _there_  and that I’m over  _here_  and-” Dani’s voice broke and Aubrey’s heart broke. She squeezed her eyes shut tight and tucked her chin down against her chest, her shoulders shaking as she continued, her words broken, “Sometimes I just have to speak so that this silence doesn’t kill me.”

And then, finally, in the driver’s seat of Mama’s truck, Dani broke and clamped her free hand over her mouth, muffling the sobs that escaped her.

“Oh, Dani,” Aubrey murmured.

“I’m sorry, I’m  _sorry,_  I just-”

Aubrey quickly unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned across the console, unbuckling Dani’s own before collecting her in her arms. She held Dani (who buried her face in the crook of Aubrey’s neck and gripped onto the front of her sweatshirt) close and, in that moment, wanted nothing more than to take away every bad thing she was feeling and just give her a true moment of  _peace._

“Hey,  _hey,_  don’t apologize, okay?” Aubrey said softly, resting her cheek against Dani’s head. “You- you  _never_  have to apologize for this, okay? I-” She trailed off, thinking for a moment before sighing. “I want to say to just know that we all love you, and that we all want you to feel at home with us, but I also know that… it’s not that easy. So I- I guess what I  _can_  say is that… I understand what you’re feeling, and it fucking _sucks-”_  Through her tears, Dani let out a wet laugh, and Aubrey smiled “-And know that, through all of this… I’m here for you.” 

“I- I don’t want you all to think that I don’t love Amnesty,” Dani forced out. “I love all of you so fucking much! But-”

“It’s hard,” Aubrey said and Dani nodded. “I know.”

“I really miss my home, Aubrey.”

“I know.”

When Dani’s sobs finally started to quiet, and her tears began to slow, she pulled back, rubbing at her face with her sleeves. “I- wow,” she breathed out and, in the dim light, Aubrey could just see how red and puffy Dani’s face was. “That hasn’t… I haven’t done that in a while.”

“Hey,” Aubrey said, giving her a small smile. “It’s good to let out your emotions. Some people cry, others set things on fire.”

Dani gave her a look before laughing, and it still hitched slightly but it was the realest laugh Aubrey had heard from Dani that night. Dani reached over and grabbed Aubrey’s hands, squeezing them gently.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Aubrey squeezed her hands back. “Of course.”

Dani smiled and leaned forward, kissing Aubrey’s cheek, and Aubrey felt her face burn up.

Looking over at the clock on the dashboard, Dani’s eyes widened. “Oh shit,” she whispered, and Aubrey looked over to see that it was well past two-A.M. “We should, uh, probably get back?”

“Do you want me to drive?”

Dani smirked and rubbed her eyes one final time. “Nice try, but only me and Barclay are allowed to drive Mama’s truck.”

“Well, there go my plans of stealing her truck and putting flame decals on it.”

Dani laughed and, shifting the car out of park, began to drive back to Amnesty Lodge.

It wasn’t until Dani had parked the car again that she said, “Hey, Aubs?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I… stay with you tonight?”

Aubrey grinned. “Oh, hell yeah, a continuation of the girl’s night!”

Dani laughed and nodded. “Hopefully with less crying this time?”

“Maybe but, hey, I won’t judge.”

Dani beamed. “You’re so good to me, Aubrey,” she said, and Aubrey’s heart skipped a beat. “Now, come on, let’s get inside. Barclay is probably gonna want us to help with breakfast and I’d like to get  _some_  sleep before I make a fuckload of pancakes.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!! comments and kudos are greatly appreciated <3
> 
> ohsweetflips.tumblr.com


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